world19News #106 - June 20, 2002 |
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world19News This e-mail is going to people on the mailing list for world19. If you don't want to receive further notices, please reply to this e-mail with "remove" in the subject. Let us know if you prefer to receive this in "plain text" format. Please forward this to anyone you think may be interested. In this issue: 1. RETAIL NOTES And, elsewhere on the retail front the June 13 issue of eye
weekly has an update on the worsening plight of independent bookstores. http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_06.13.02/news/booksellers.html
2. WINDSHARE The environmental benefits are huge, and obvious. (They claim the turbines will displace 2.8 million kg of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere every year). With growing energy needs and increasing pressure on fossil fuels, and encouragement of green power, the value of this power may well increase. See http://www.windshare.ca
for more information. 3. DEVELOPMENT NOTES b) Southport Plaza 3. TORONTO June 16, 2002 TORONTO, June 14 - A shantytown is swelling on the shores of Lake Ontario, practically in the shadow of Canada's richest banks. The 80 residents have squatted on five acres of undeveloped land that is soaking in mercury and lead. Dogs rummage through garbage. Outhouses donated by charities have a stench. There is no running water, save for a single hose shared by everyone, and no electricity. In the winter, people warm themselves over wood stoves. The first baby was born in the shantytown last month, but was taken away by government authorities because the parents used drugs and lived in a shack. "I don't have a clue how people could live like this in Canada," said a 21-year-old resident named Michael, who gave only his first name. But he himself recently moved into Tent City after losing his welding job. "Rents are just too high in Toronto," he said. Toronto, Canada's premier city for business and finance, is still considered a model. Like other cities across Canada, it generally managed to escape the urban blight that afflicted industrial cities in the United States in recent decades. But signs of fraying are becoming evident here, even though Canada's economy is strong, property values are rising and housing construction is booming for the rich and upper middle class. The poor have been left behind in an otherwise bustling housing market. City officials estimate that 6,000 people are now homeless in Toronto, double the number of a decade ago. Panhandlers have also become more plentiful outside Toronto's fashionable stores and hotels. Less than 1 percent of Toronto's low-income housing units stand vacant, and apartment rents have risen 35 percent in five years. The number of units that can be rented for $455 a month or less has decreased by nearly two-thirds since 1998, city housing officials say. At the same time, welfare payments fell - by 21 percent since 1996 - because the Ontario provincial government was running deficits and cut spending on things like housing, welfare and transport for austerity. An influx of immigrants, a relaxing of rent controls and a slashing of federal and provincial public housing budgets all account for the shortage of low-cost housing. While Toronto's chief administrative officer, Shirley Hoy, says, "We've got to fix this because the number of people spilling into the streets is growing," the solution will not come easily. This city built almost 24,500 units of public housing from 1984 to 1996, but fewer than 100 units in the next five years. The waiting list is long and growing; in shelters, the number of beds is up sixfold in three years, to 4,100, and occupancy is 95 percent. With 106,000 households in Toronto now spending more than 50 percent of their incomes on rent, families are doubling up in single-family homes or are forced to choose between buying food and medicine or paying the rent. There is a joke that Toronto is like New York, except it is run by the Swiss. The subways are squeaky clean. Public parks are safe late into the night. But the emergence of Tent City and growing homelessness suggest that the quality of life in Toronto, as in many other Canadian cities, is beginning to fray under financial and demographic strain. Cuts in federal and provincial funding over the last 10 years have left Toronto and other cities increasingly reliant on property and business taxes to finance crucial services at a time when large companies and the wealthy have been migrating to the suburbs. Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million, suffers in particular because it must have a balanced budget according to provincial law, and it does not have the right to issue its own bonds. The federal government is encouraging immigration to spur population growth, and that means Toronto and other cities must take on new responsibilities for education, child care, health and housing services - sometimes in multiple languages. The signs of stress are growing. With the city 10 years behind in its plans to repair roads and bridges, potholes are more common. The grass is growing higher before it is cut in the parks. There is more litter on the streets. And air quality is declining, as the city sprawls and bus and streetcar service has been cut back, lengthening the lines of people waiting to commute. "Toronto is at the early stages of erosion as a model city," said Jack Layton, a City Council member and the past president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. "The question is, are we going to notice it and do something about it in time?" The trend in governmental policies may be starting to swing back. The federal government agreed last month to give Toronto and other cities more than $400 million in new housing funds over five years, but Toronto officials say it is a pittance considering the city's needs. "We have no housing growth strategy to deal with population growth," said Sean Goetz-Gadon, a senior housing official in the Toronto government. For Jackie Kendell, an ebullient 32-year-old, time has already run out. She is homeless, and she spends her days panhandling, rolling cigarettes and playing with her Rottweiler around her ramshackle shack in Tent City. A year ago, Ms. Kendell and her boyfriend, Doug, were on welfare, paying $240 a month to rent a tiny apartment in a boarding house. Then came the knock on the door. The house had been sold, and most residents were evicted. Ms. Kendell said that she and her boyfriend could not find an apartment they could afford, and that no homeless shelter would allow them in with their dog. So they turned to Tent City. "Our dog is our pride and joy, my life, so there was nowhere else to go," said Ms. Kendell, who admitted to deadening her pains with daily marijuana smoking. "But there is no future here." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company Here are some people who might want to hear about how we've
made "the big time": Ernie Eves: webprem@gov.on.ca Mel Lastman mayor_Lastman@city.toronto.on.ca b) Two Toronto Summits Royson James' column in the Toronto Star on June 19 discusses this summit, but also describes a Toronto "People's Summit" that will occur the previous day, with a slightly different focus. From James's column: "But a day before ... Toronto residents will meet for the People Summit, a takeoff from the Lastman-inspired event with a grassroots bent. It will attract a wide range of people, from academics to dwellers of tent city, all intent on ensuring that social issues don't get forgotten in the big push for economic prosperity and global competitiveness." The Summit is open to public participation. See http://www.torontocan.ca/Summit.html for more info.
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